“A Beautiful Mess” by Search the City, Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Last summer, I wrote about the opening track, "My Secrets Have Secrets Too," to Search the City's sophomore record, Flight. A few days later, I realized that the song wasn't showing up in my AppleMusic playlist (see August 2021). It turns out that the version I bought in 2013 on the iTunes Store and the version that eventually made its way back to Spotify and AppleMusic in 2020 are quite different. The version I bought has the track listing on Discogs.com, while the a-cappella intro is missing on from the streaming services and the remaining 11 tracks are scrambled in a new order.

THEY SEE YOU LOSING HOPE. I'm interested to find out why "My Secrets Have Secrets Too" didn't make it to the streaming version of the album. The band had a lot of trouble getting the rights to their record after a lawsuit with their former manager, who claimed the rights to the record. What was hoped to be a comeback record and a reboot of the pop-punk band, ultimately became a point of contention with the band and their management. After losing the rights to their music, the album was taken down from iTunes and was only reintroduced to streaming in 2020. You can still find the album in its original version on Search the City's bandcamp page. It's unfortunate that this band's career was halted by a manager who claimed the rights to their music, and because of this manager, they never got a solid second shot. But sometimes, isn't that just life? What a "Beautiful Mess" this record has proven to be.

YOU’RE SUCH A PRETTY FACE. Speaking of beautiful messes, I think that it's about time to address the "fallen girl" archetype in pop-punk and emo. You don't have to look far to find misogamy in these genres. It's well documented in some of the most popular songs. But, as YouTuber Polyphonic points out in his video "A Love Letter to Pop Punk," although there are some valid examples of sexism in the the '00 genre, other genres also were subject to misogamy's ugly head as well. And while today's song may not be the most explicit example of a "fallen girl" trope, a conversation with another teacher about a story we teach in our curriculum made me think about how much "benevolent sexism" was part of my everyday life from church, to youth group, to Christian Rock. There's a message about how a boy needs to tell a girl that she's worth it and that she's beautiful, in a similar way that we can't know our true worth without Christ telling us that we're worthy. Again, I admit that this may be a stretch reading into the lyrics, but talking about the Persian fairy tale of "Simorgh," particularly the roles of women in the story, had my co-worker in a heated fury about sexist tropes in literature and movies into the 21st century. So, I thought about today's song. Why does this "beautiful mess" need some young guy to sing about her?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Photograph" Ed Sheeran, Saturday, February 3, 2024 (updated repost)

Image
  Before " Shape of You ," Ed Sheeran was known primarily as a singer-songwriter. His albums + and X took clear influence from The Beatles , Carole King , Elton John , James Taylor , and the ballad writers of yesteryear. But he had a knack for throwing in a few rap bars along the way. With every record, Sheeran gained more acclaim. His sophomore record produced the mega Billboard #2 hit , " Thinking Out Loud ," which won two Grammys including Song of the Year. The final single from the album, " Photograph " was written in collaboration with Snow Patrol 's Johnny McDaid . Sheeran drew inspiration from his long distance relationship with singer/songwriter Nina Nesbitt (the featured musician on Kodaline ’s acoustic version of “Brand New Day” ). The two spent five months apart. They would eventually break up, but the song remains a gem on Sheeran's second best-selling record.  LOVING CAN HURT . "Photograph" was the song that introduced m
Read more

“Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry (reworked post), Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Image
When I was a Christian teenager, a book started circulating in my church youth group. Joshua Harris wrote about youth with wisdom and authority that seemed logical and categorical for every situation to the young women who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye . The book’s thesis argued that dating was a worldly alternative to the more purposeful Christian concept of courtship. Dating fueled erotic passions, which must be saved for a heterosexual marriage. Dating is casual, even preteens dates. Courtship was about vetting a marriage partner and would happen in the late teen years or early adulthood.  YOU THINK I'M PRETTY WITHOUT ANY MAKEUP ON .  Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye was part of a movement I’ve written about a lot: purity culture. How much this movement influenced young Katy Hudson, a pastor’s daughter in Southern California, touring with a slew of Christian rockers on the heels of her debut, self-titled album , I can only speculate what went through the 17-year-old star’s
Read more

"All of Me Wants All of You" (Helado Negro Remix) by Sufjan Stevens, Sunday, February 27, 2022

Image
I've talked about how Carrie & Lowell , Sufjan Steven 's 2015 masterpiece, is a quintessential portrait of dealing with grief and forgiveness when I wrote about the first two tracks, " Death with Dignity ," and " Should Have Known Better ." By the third track on the record, " All of Me Wants All of You ," explores grief in a different way from the previous two tracks. As with most songs on the album, "All of Me" appears to be deeply personal to the artist. But being personal doesn't stop this track's language from being the most obscured with allusions to geography and possibly an allegory from a little-known Spanish play. ALL OF ME THINKS LESS OF YOU.  There's a debate   on Lyrics Genius about the meaning of this song, especially surrounding the identity of the only other character mentioned by name in this song, Manelich. Is he the one the song is about? Stevens has written vaguely about homosexual attraction throughout
Read more